Friday, October 11, 2013

Oct 11 2013 Philippine Suertres/Swertres Tips and Lotto Results

If corruption is endemic and deeply embedded in both government and collaborators in the private sector, its cure can only be even more disturbing. A force that needs to be changed demands a greater counterforce. A people and nation long afflicted with corruption and abuse of power from the top must experience turbulence powerful enough to cleanse society.

The removal of dictators or authoritarian governments has often been easier than achieving the desired change that precipitated their removal. Disposing of unwanted leaders can happen fast, but building a new culture of governance grounded on the straight and narrow can take a long, long time. This is especially true when the change agents did not prepare themselves and the public to be led by a new set of values.

The nature of change once it gets going is that it is unpredictable in both intensity and form. When change hits an environment, it cannot be told what to do – and what not to do. It moves into areas where there were no previous intentions of change. It is like water that seeks into its own level. That is why revolutions have been known to eat their own children.

The vulgarity of the misuse of the PDAF and the pork barrel system has triggered a reaction among Filipinos that surprises even me. For so long, the general public has been very tolerant of corruption. There was a general feeling of resignation, even acceptance that those in high positions were entitled to enrich themselves in office. This is understandable when one thinks of what the history of governance had been for centuries, when the people served their governors instead of being served.

Democracy is a strange animal for people who have followed datus and foreign masters for centuries. It is strange for those who govern to be the servants of a public who have long been their subjects. It is equally strange for the governed to understand that the elite are public servants when they had always been their rulers. There is a great learning that has to take place in the relationship between the governors and the governed.